CHRISTIANS: On the Front Lines of Muslim Violence

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righteousmomma

In the U.K, the Muslim communities refuse to integrate and there are now dozens of “no-go” zones within major cities across the country that the police force dare not intrude upon. Sharia law prevails there, because the Muslim community in those areas refuse to acknowledge British law.

That was true when we lived in Paris of the French police. It is in Belgium and some areas of Germany and Spain and is spreading.

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Valin

My son in law's father sent me this and a friend of his had forwarded it to him so not sure of the original source:

1.

2. (As I have said before) What we are seeing is an ongoing war inside Islam (See Bernard Lewis titles available on request), one way to look at it was America and the south in particular before the civil rights movement, the vast majority of Americans at that time were not bigots, yet Jim Crow was the law in a lot of this country, and we (non-Muslims) are simply collateral victims. The dirty little secret is most of the people the Islamic terrorist kill are Muslims.

3. We (Civilized people) are winning in spite of the fact we in the West are doing a horrible job of fighting on the ideological front (war of ideas). One recent example

cairo protests June 30 2013

7 million (?) Muslims showed up and told the MB...NO.

These guys have no clue on how to govern, all they have is bumper sticker slogans and the violent Islamist only have death. I know it often doesn't look that way but we are...winning.

4. Related not to the above. History...History...History. Starting at the end of WWI Fascism and Communism were the wave of the future, democracy was done, dead. 1945 put an end to Fascism as a viable way to govern,

This

And this

Put an end to communism.

The same will be true of the Islamist/Salafists.

5. One of two things will happen in the next 50-100 years. Islam will find a way to live in the modern world or it will go away....become a very small insignificant religion.

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SrWoodchuck

Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you. – Matthew 5:11-12

The Beatitude before this one pronounces a blessing on those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake. Taken in isolation, it would be easy to read that Beatitude as a sort of general “Rah, rah for the underdog” sentiment. But coupled with this saying, it takes on a very different sense. For this Beatitude is a refinement and a refocusing of the one preceding it.

Those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake are, whether they realize it or not and whether they like it or not, persecuted for Christ. So the pro-life atheist like Nat Hentoff who endures brickbats and ultimately loss of his job at the hands of people committed to the murder of the unborn is, whether he knows it or not, suffering on Christ’s account.

This does not mean that salvation is guaranteed everybody who endures persecution.

If this is true of those who suffer for Christ without even realizing it, how much more true is it of the Christian martyr, who endures all sorts of abuse and even goes to his death in conscious awareness that he does so for Jesus Christ?

That is the ultimate meaning of the promise that lies behind this (rather frightening) last Beatitude of Jesus’. Like all the Beatitudes, it’s counter-intuitive. We admire martyrs, but we don’t want to be one. And this is especially true of Christian martyrdom since a) the devil really tends to pull out the stops for Christian martyrs (just read the hair-raising stories of the fiendish cruelties devised for them) and these days, you don’t even get the payoff of the admiration of the mob that some of the early Christian martyrs got.

But the Beatitude does not urge us to take the natural course and Jesus does not, in fact, follow my lead and spend a lot of time complaining about the obvious injustice of the world toward the Church, just as he did not spend a lot of time whining about his own persecution, passion and death. To be sure, he warns the Church of the injustices to expect. But he does not instruct the Church, “When they persecute you, file a class action suit.” He does not say, “You will be hated by all men, and you must write angry letters to the editor complaining about this fact.” He does not urge us “When someone strikes you on the right cheek, let it burn with resentment at the injustice of it all.” His counsel, as usual, is counter-intuitive. He tells us to do things like cowboy up and take it (“He that endures to the end shall be saved.” (Matthew 24:13)) and even more astonishingly, he says we should rejoice.

That would seem incredible and impossibly pollyanna, except that we know for a fact that his followers have actually pulled it off down through the ages. From the apostles in Acts, rejoicing that they had been found worthy to suffer for the Name, to Paul, writing from prison, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice” (Philippians 4:4), to St. Thomas More greeting the news of his condemnation with gratitude to the King who was ordering his judicial murder to the martyrs of the 20th century such as Edith Stein, who wrote her fellow on the way to Auschwitz to tell them her prayer life was going wonderfully well, we see that it really is the case that we can rejoice and be glad about suffering for Christ.

Paul could write such words—instead of “Why me?” or “This shows the need for the proletariat to rise up and smash the oppressor!” or “God must really hate me and I deserve it!” or “This proves I really am a saint since people hate me!”—because he could see beyond his circumstances. He set his mind on Christ and saw everything through Him. Instead of being amazed at the injustice of the world to him or (worse still) assuming that being a victim automatically made him a saint (something every narcissistic slimeball in the world assumes), he instead kept his eyes on Jesus and let him do the justifying. He kept in his heart that Jesus had said “If they call me Beelzebul, they will do the same to you.” He focused on Jesus, not on himself or on his persecutors.

This meant that Paul was not shocked or offended by persecution. Paul had no comforting modern mental buffer in his head which assured him that people used to persecute Jesus’ followers long ago in the early Church, but that such thing are no longer to be expected because we are Americans or live in the 21st century. He knew that Christ’s words to the Church were his words to the Church, not to “the early Church”. And so, Paul recognized that his very bonds were simply another way of being conformed to Christ, who was Himself part of the prison population on the night before His own execution. Paul could rejoice, realizing that to live was Christ and to die was gain. He (following Jesus) endured what he endured, not because he couldn’t wait to get out of this lousy world, but because he couldn’t wait to see the world renewed. He knew that joy, not grief, is the final word that will be spoken. And he knew that our task is to ready our souls to receive it. So he knew that “he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life” and urged the Church “Let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we do not lose heart” (Galatians 6:8-9).

Because the world & the current media have moved, or are moving away from Christ & Christianity [iMO] we are left with what we are able to accomplish on our own....regarding Christian persecution.

By "on our own"......I mean as the Body of Christ on earth.

Other periods of history....became crucibles for Christians....both inside & outside the Church [Catholic as in universal & all denominations].

This is the time of our trial & testing.

We are not all suffering physical violence yet....but we are in a deadly struggle none the less. We are enduring the sword of political correctness regarding the practice of our faith in public, as well as the erosion of our Christian values & morals by an increasingly hostile & completely secular group of "progressive" elitists.....twisting the law to their favor.

It is a time of "Hope & Change"....but not in the way that Barack Hussein Soetoro Obama believes.

We are being tempered in a fire.....and need to keep our hearts open to others & our eyes on Christ.

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Valin

Valin and Sr Woodchuck, you each have made some excellent and valid points with your posts. I am not refuting nor affirming (though I personally may agree or not and mostly I concur.)

My point is found in Genesis 15:6 quite succinctly.

There is One True God. We do it His Way or the highway to you know where.

I'm not sure there is really any or that much disagreement between us.

BTW Some Christians in America talk about that we're being Persecuted. We're not, we're being...inconvenienced...at best. Here it doesn't cost us anything really to be a Christian, go to (say) Pakistan...India...Egypt and you'll see what real Persecution is all about, and it has nothing to do with zoning problems...or holding a prayer group in a school.

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Valin

Because the world & the current media have moved, or are moving away from Christ & Christianity [iMO] we are left with what we are able to accomplish on our own....regarding Christian persecution.

By "on our own"......I mean as the Body of Christ on earth.

Other periods of history....became crucibles for Christians....both inside & outside the Church [Catholic as in universal & all denominations].

This is the time of our trial & testing.

We are not all suffering physical violence yet....but we are in a deadly struggle none the less. We are enduring the sword of political correctness regarding the practice of our faith in public, as well as the erosion of our Christian values & morals by an increasingly hostile & completely secular group of "progressive" elitists.....twisting the law to their favor.

It is a time of "Hope & Change"....but not in the way that Barack Hussein Soetoro Obama believes.

We are being tempered in a fire.....and need to keep our hearts open to others & our eyes on Christ.

I would just say one person doing the Will of God...there's no telling what can be accomplished. Multitudinous examples available on request. Christianity may be dying here in the West (although I have a sneaking suspicion the rumors of its death are greatly exaggerated...History you know. ) , well that's fine because the faith is exploding in other areas.

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Geee

Muslim slaughter of non-Muslim “infidels” saw an especially dramatic weekend in the nations of Pakistan and Kenya. Even so, these are simply the latest in a long list of jihadi attacks on the Christians of both nations.

Last Sunday, September 22, in Peshawar, Pakistan, Islamic suicide bombers entered the All Saints Church compound right after Sunday mass and blew themselves up in the midst of some 550 congregants, killing, according to the latest count, nearly 90 worshippers, including many Sunday school children, women, and choir members, and injuring at least another 120. The now destroyed Protestant church was built in Peshawar some 130 years ago. The Taliban claimed the attacks.

According to Margrette, a parishioner who survived (though her sister’s status was unknown), “I heard two explosions. People started to run. Human remains were strewn all over the church.”

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Valin

Al Arabiya posted the above picture of ISIL members breaking the cross off of one of the churches.

Yesterday, the al-Qaeda linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) broke the crosses off the two Christian churches in Raqqah, a city in northern Syria. They also set the contents of the churches the Church of the Annunciation and the Church of Martyrs aflame, and lifted the Islamic flag above them.

Members of the Islamic organization first broke the large cross from off the Church of the Annunciation. This prompted the residents of Raqqah to march and protest, calling for the expulsion of the Islamic terrorists, while carrying the cross.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant responded by attacking the Church of the Annunciation once again, gathering all its crosses and icons from inside, and setting them on fire. They capped off their victory by raising the ISIL flagwhich is identical to al-Qaedas black flag with the words, There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger (the Islamic shehada, or profession of faith).

(snip)

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righteousmomma

We have not mentioned the Mall seizure here but it is every bit as much an assault against "Christianity" and Western ideals as going into a church or a village and torturing everyone that is non Islamic/Muslim.

I expect persecution against God in Christ Jesus. The Hebrew prophets forthtold it, Jesus said it was coming and his disciples - including Paul, warned us. Revelation sees it finality.

There are so many verses I could quote but for us in post modern/post Christianity America Sr Woodchuck expressed it quite well:

We are not all suffering physical violence yet....but we are in a deadly struggle none the less. We are enduring the sword of political correctness regarding the practice of our faith in public, as well as the erosion of our Christian values & morals by an increasingly hostile & completely secular group of "progressive" elitists.....twisting the law to their favor.

It is a time of "Hope & Change"....but not in the way that Barack Hussein Soetoro Obama believes.

We are being tempered in a fire.....and need to keep our hearts open to others & our eyes on Christ.

Stances taken by organizations like the Nat'l Council pf Churches and the World Council of Churches and the Liberation Theology and liberal seminaries that deny the fundamental basis Doctrine of the Bible (and the Bible itself ) etc etc etc express this sorry apathetic coma of hard hearts and blind eyes and deaf ears that Jesus said would come.

So having said all that - I think the sheer primeval beastly non human conscience violence of acts done by the mall attackers and by the same countless horrors done against village after village and church attendees after church attendees fills us all with such horror we do not want to think about it.

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SrWoodchuck

An example of the "enlightenment" of our Obamunist educated college students. Warning: Language alert.

A video uploaded to YouTube by a pro-life organization appears to show a university student verbally attacking a campus pro-life group on Thursday.

The 26-second clip appears to show an unidentified student at Indiana University approaching the pro-life college group, allegedly upset with a display they had erected on the campus.

“You’re in conflict with the world that I want which is a world where all your churches burn,” the student then tells the group. “And if we are ever strong enough, we are going to stop you.”

According to the email Students For Life sent out, another student also ripped out pink crosses they had placed in the ground that were supposed to symbolize the amount of “babies that Planned Parenthood kills each day.” The student allegedly shouted abortion “was awesome” as he removed the crosses.

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Geee

Many around the world were recently made aware—got a small glimpse—of the Islamic jihad that plagues northern Nigeria, at the hands of Boko Haram, an organization dedicated to eradicating Christianity and enforcing the totality of Sharia law.

Last Sunday, September 29, around 1 a.m. Islamic terrorists dressed in Nigerian military uniforms invaded an agricultural college, shooting students as they slept in their dorms, killing a total of some 50 students.

As with the Islamic assaults in Kenya and Pakistan from the previous weekend—the former on a mall, the latter on a Christian church, leaving a combined total of nearly 200 people dead and hundreds injured—this latest jihadi attack in Nigeria is, far from an aberration, simply the latest in a tremendously long list of jihadi atrocities, most often targeting Christians.

Indeed, when it comes to Nigeria, it is difficult just keeping up with the atrocities—so frequent, sometimes daily, are they.

Thus the day before the agricultural college attack, in Kaduna state, Nigeria, Muslim herdsmen slaughtered 15 Christians. And the day before that, Islamic militants killed a Christian pastor and his son, torched their church in Dorawa, and killed another 28 people.

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Geee

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul spent Friday morning telling stories to conservatives about the persecution of Christians across the world.

“Today I want to tell you about a war the mainstream media is ignoring,” the Republican lawmaker said Friday during the Values Voter Summit in Washington. “From Boston to Zanzibar, there is a worldwide war on Christianity.”

“You won’t hear much about it on the evening news because the answer is not convenient and does not fit the narrative we have been told about radical Islam,” Paul added.

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Geee

“Our Holy Pilgrimage will be Complete Once We Have Killed You, Ripped Out Your Hearts and Raped Your Women.”

Muslims in America are trained to spend a lot of time complaining about Islamophobia. But some Muslims from Dearbornistan only learned what the real thing was when they made their pilgrimage to Mecca.

Like so many Dearbornies, they were Shiites. And Saudi Arabia is a Sunni country.

A group of Americans visiting Saudi Arabia to perform Hajj were threatened and attacked earlier this week on Oct. 16 by a radicalized group of extremists. When they encountered a group that identified themselves as not only Americans, but also as Shiite Muslims, they were threatened and attacked by the group of men, who were apparently armed with knives and other blades.

In continuing the assault, the men also shouted “We’re going to do Karbala all over again,”

The Americans fled the tent area, which the Saudi government had specifically designated for American and European pilgrims. During the escape, many of the group, almost entirely U.S. citizens and mostly hailing from Dearborn, Michigan suffered bruises (in one case, due to an attempted strangulation), concussions, broken bones, and black eyes.

During the attack, the men reportedly shouted “Our [holy pilgrimage] will be complete once we have killed you, ripped out your hearts and eaten them, and [then] raped your women.”

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Geee

Israeli Christians surveying the current situation faced by Christians throughout the Arab Middle East have come to the realization that the Jewish State of Israel is the only country in the region that protects its Christian minority. It prompted a recent conference in Jerusalem titled, “Israeli Christians: Breaking Free? The Advent of an Independent Christian Voice in Israel,” that took place on Monday, September 23, 2013. The speakers included Father (Fr.) Gabriel Naddaf, a Greek Orthodox priest from Nazareth, and spiritual leader of the Israeli Christian Recruitment Forum; Lt. (IDF) Shaadi Khalloul, spokesman for the Israeli Christian Recruitment Forum, and Captain (IDF) Bishara Shlayan, the founder of a Christian Israeli party.

To some people this Israeli-Christian conference was nothing less than historical in nature. Others considered it as perhaps a shift of an ancient paradigm. Whatever one might choose to call this brave Christian group, it is the first time Israeli Christians have declared loud and clear “We are not Arabs, we are Christians who speak Arabic.”

The ongoing turmoil in the Arab Middle East, and the possible breakup of existing states such as Syria and Iraq, have sharpened ethnic and religious consciousness among Christians and Kurds, who seek to retain their identity. That is also true of Lebanese Christians who reject the notion of being Arab. 1,400 years of Arab conquest and subjugation obscured the fact that Arabism and Islam were imposed in the Seventh Century C.E. on the non-Arab majority of people of the Middle East by hordes of Arab raiders from the Arabian Peninsula.

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Geee

Who is more deserving of punishment by the United States? Millions of Egyptians, for ousting the Muslim Brotherhood? Or the Muslim Brotherhood, for habitually terrorizing and murdering Christians, among many other crimes?

According to the unmistakably clear actions of the Obama administration, it is the millions of anti-Brotherhood Egyptians who deserve punishment.

Last Sunday, the Church of the Virgin Mary in Waraq near Cairo was attacked during a wedding ceremony, leaving four dead and many wounded. According to Dr. Hisham Abdul Hamid of forensics, two of those who were murdered were Christian children—two girls; two Marys: 12-year-old Mary Nabil Fahmy, who took five shots in the chest, and 8-year-old Mary Ashraf Masih (meaning “Christ”), who took a bullet in the back which burst from the front.

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Geee

Looking straight into the camera, she states with confidence that she will defeat the Jews. With equal zeal, she defines Christians as a gang of infidels refusing to follow Allah’s teachings. She is a young girl, not even ten years old, trained in a UNRWA summer camp. Posted in July 2013, the video is instrumental for understanding a key concept underlying the hatred that feeds radical Islam. The enemy envisaged by traditional and fundamentalist Muslim societies is but a “gang” formed by Jews and Christians alike. Unwilling to yield to the radical teachings of local Muslim communities, they are viewed as guilty of living in the land of Israel.

In the 19th century, Jewish communities were massacred in various pogroms in Eastern Europe as a result of irrational arguments advanced by nationalist extremists. A similar hostile environment seems to be emerging today. At present, we do not speak about the Russian Imperial Army’s regiments or the hordes of mobs filled with hate. We speak about radical Muslims who tend to separate the Jews and the Christians, ideologically and physically from the rest of the local societies. This leads to a situation in which the destruction of human life is accepted and encouraged.

On July 4th 1976, Palestinian terrorists singled out Jews while conducting the infamous Entebbe hijacking. Throughout his presidency, Mohammed Morsi repeatedly stated that Israelis are descendants of monkeys and pigs while the followers of his party waged war against Egyptian’s Copts. On September 20th 2013, Islamist terrorists separated Muslims from non-Muslims and tortured the latter to death at the Westgate Nairobi mall. From Libya to Nigeria, from Kenya to Syria and from Pakistan to Dagestan, Jews and Christians are repeatedly targeted by fundamentalist groups because of their faith. They represent an enduring challenge to the totalitarian ideas of radical Islam.

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Geee

According to information released at a May 9, 2013 press conference by the families of Navy SEALs killed in an August 2011 helicopter shoot-down in Afghanistan, "military brass prohibited any mention of a Judeo-Christian G-d" and "invited a Muslim cleric to the funeral for the fallen Navy SEAL Team VI heroes who disparaged in Arabic the memory of these servicemen by damning them as infidels to Allah."

The accusations arose over a "ramp ceremony" held at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan as flag-draped caskets of the dead soldiers were loaded onto a plane for transport back to the United States. The shocking words of the Muslim cleric, revealed in later translations, were spoken at a memorial service meant to honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. They were yet another example of the abject disrespect of Christians and Christianity endemic to the Muslim world.

Here at home, Christianity and Christian religious practices are also under attack, but in more subtle ways and under a misinterpretation of the principle of freedom of religion. In the United States, that legal doctrine is cited to marginalize Christian prayer and traditions, while, at the same time, dramatically accommodating and even expanding Muslim religious practices. Myriad examples exist.

During the recent government shutdown, Catholic priests were warned that they could be arrested for celebrating Mass, even if performed on a voluntary basis. Under Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel's direction and determination was that priests do not "contribute to the morale" and "well-being" of military personnel." Thus, offering of the sacraments was prohibited and the Eucharist placed under lock and key. Curiously, no mention was made of curtailing religious freedom for Muslim service members or furloughing imams.

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Geee

President Obama proclaimed to the United Nations General Assembly in September 2012: “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”

In keeping with this sentiment, his administration decided to scrub all federal law enforcement training materials in order to eliminate the use of such words or phrases as jihadists or Islamic terrorists, since the use of such terms could be viewed by Muslims as evidence of Islamophobia.

By contrast, the Obama administration, including the military over which President Obama presides as commander-in-chief, is engaging in a pattern of behavior targeting traditional Christian believers and their groups as extremists and mocking their beliefs.

For example, according to an October 23, 2013 report by Fox News, “Soldiers attending a pre-deployment briefing at Fort Hood say they were told that evangelical Christians and members of the Tea Party were a threat to the nation and that any soldier donating to those groups would be subjected to punishment under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.”

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righteousmomma

Geee, the last 2 articles you just posted sound like something from the Onion or some such satirical group. (not implying they are - just meaning that the surreal absurdity of views today boggle the mind.) Scary, scary stuff. Real true blasphemy against the One True Almighty God.

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Geee

Geee, the last 2 articles you just posted sound like something from the Onion or some such satirical group. (not implying they are - just meaning that the surreal absurdity of views today boggle the mind.) Scary, scary stuff. Real true blasphemy against the One True Almighty God.

I was just trying to point out that it's bad enough to be persecuted in the Mideast but we should be alert as to the freedom of religion slipping in our own country.

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Geee

CNSNews.com) – Embattled Christians in Islamic nations including Syria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia; in communist countries such as North Korea; and in less self-evident problem areas elsewhere like India, will be the focus of fellow believers around the world over the next two Sundays, marked as the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church.

Churches around the world are being encouraged to dedicate November 3 or 10 to praying for an estimated 200 million people around the world who are targeted by their governments, compatriots or both, for their faith in Jesus Christ.

Advocacy groups are making resources available online, including prayer guidelines, sermon outlines and ideas for youth and children’s activities.

The annual event was launched 16 years ago by a coalition of Christian organizations who pledged to end their “silence in the face of the suffering of all those persecuted for their religious faith.”

Over the years since, the day has also helped advocacy organizations draw attention to especially critical situations in various parts of the world.

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Geee

What’s worse than the silence of Western Christians concerning the Muslim persecution of their coreligionists in the Islamic world? Answer: Cynically exploiting that persecution for a political agenda—in the case of a recent Daily Beast article, to excoriate the state of Israel and its supporters.

Titled “Why Won’t the West Defend Middle Eastern Christians?” and written by Diarmaid MacCulloch, a Fellow of St. Cross College, the article touches on the persecution of Christians, but primarily as a springboard to attack American Christian support for Israel. Consider the following excerpt:

… one of the silences which I find most frustrating is precisely the lack of noise from Western Christians about the fate of ancient Christianities in the Middle East. At the heart of the problems in the Middle East is seven decades of unresolved conflict between Israel and Palestine…

Yes, Western silence vis-à-vis the plight of Mideast Christians is as real as it is frustrating, but exactly how is MacCulloch able to jump to the conclusion that the Arab-Israeli conflict is “the heart” of the problem?

What about the well-documented Islamic doctrines that codify the suppression and persecution of Christians and other non-Muslims?

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Valin

Yes, Western silence vis-à-vis the plight of Mideast Christians is as real as it is frustrating, but exactly how is MacCulloch able to jump to the conclusion that the Arab-Israeli conflict is “the heart” of the problem?